Forecast

State’s older infrastructure at disadvantage in new transportation plan

By Dan Freedman| on
February 12, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure package landed with something of a thud in Connecticut, a state deep in a fiscal rut and little hope of meeting the plan’s goal of using federal dollars to leverage state and private funds.

The Trump plan rolled out Monday was not a surprise, following the lines laid out by the president practically since he took office over a year ago: $200 billion in federal money, with about half of it aimed at spurring state, local and private dollars through an “incentives program.”

The remainder would go to projects that might not otherwise attract investment and other infrastructure financing needs, including $20 billion for existing infrastructure projects and $50 billion targeted at rural America.

“Washington will no longer be a roadblock to progress,” Trump said at a White House meeting of state and local officials. “Washington will now be your partner.”

Trump extolled the plan’s harnessing of private investment, noting how he himself rebuilt the Wollman skating rink in New York City “in a few months … for a tiny fraction of the cost.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, called the plan a “sham.”

Blumenthal and other Democrats have long complained that any infrastructure plan that involves private dollars instead of direct federal spending implies costly tolls and other gimmicks so investors can get a return on their money.

In Hartford, Gov. Dannel Malloy has proposed electronic highway tolls — possibly involving express lanes — as a way to recoup the $4.3 billion in transportation projects he canceled because of the state’s budget woes. He also proposed a seven-cent increase in the state gas tax and a $3 tax on tires.

Malloy himself blasted the Trump proposal Monday for “relying on phantom private funding” and hidden cuts that “could actually make our problems worse.”

Sen. Chris Murphy said the Trump proposal “provides pennies to infrastructure projects while cash-strapped communities are forced to spend money they don’t have or else sell off highways and railroads to Wall Street.”

The Trump plan “amounts to a drop in the bucket in critically needed federal funding,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro.

Chief among the region’s needs are widening I-95 from Greenwich to Bridgeport and widening I-84 through Danbury.

The 2017 report card of the American Society of Civil Engineers shows Connecticut with 8 percent of its 4,214 bridges structurally deficient, 14 hazardous waste sites on the national priority list, 57 percent of 21,512 miles of roadway in poor condition and more than $8 billion in wastewater and drinking water infrastructure needs over the next 20 years.

Last year, the Congressionally appointed Northeast Corridor Commission placed two Connecticut railroad bridges on its top 10 priority list. One was the Devon Bridge, originally built in 1905 to connect Stratford and Milford. It is in need of reconstruction at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion.

The other is the 1907-vintage Connecticut River Bridge connecting Old Saybrook and Old Lyme. Total overall cost: $660-million.

Apart from natural antipathy to any Trump proposal no matter what, Connecticut Democrats viewed the Trump infrastructure plan as an odd fit for a state situated at the heart of the Northeast transportation corridor from Washington to Boston.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty, a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said that although Connecticut overall sends more money in taxes to Washington than it gets back in federal spending, it has over decades actually gotten more of a return from the federal government for transportation infrastructure.

Connecticut, Esty said, is in effect being punished for the age and disrepair of its infrastructure.

“It’s far easier to build new infrastructure faster cheaper than it is to fix older infrastructure already in place,” Esty said. “I would argue we should get more support, not less, in recognition of our place in the backbone of the Eastern seaboard.”